


i know you do

by PenelopeJadewing



Series: Kacchako Bittersweet Week 2018 [2]
Category: Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Angst, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, F/M, Gen, Good Uchiha Itachi, He Was Not Prepared, Hurt/Comfort, Itachi's just a blossoming philosopher, Kirishima and the rest of the Bakusquad are present in the background, Minor Midoriya Izuku/Uraraka Ochako, One-Sided Bakugou Katsuki/Uraraka Ochako - Freeform, Philosophy, bakugou's not used to all this existential stuff okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:57:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeJadewing/pseuds/PenelopeJadewing
Summary: When Sasuke's combat genius of an older brother offers to teach a few of his classmates some new skills, Katsuki just wanted to come, learn, fight and win. He doesn't want to think about her and how she broke his heart, he doesn't want to talk about his feelings because they don't friggin matter, and he certainly doesn't want to ponder the meaning of life with the guy who gave him PTSD with his nightmare quirk just last year.Unfortunately, this guy seems bound and determined to make sure all of the above happens anyway, all while talking with the humility and poise of a patron saint. Katsuki hates Uchihas.





	i know you do

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY so. This is technically a transition from Fictober to Kacchako Bittersweet Week. I’ll be kinda consolidating the KBSW prompts with the Fictober ones to make things interesting. I’m still technically writing within this same crossover universe just to keep things simpler, though, so while I’ll just be focusing on Kacchako till the end of the week, there will also be references to the rest of this alternate universe, just so I stay in the same headspace. TuT
> 
> Now enjoy some angsty Bakugou! Day 1 Prompt: Pining.
> 
> ~P.J.

What the actual living f*** is Katsuki even doing here?

Last year, he and everybody else in 2-A had been in crisis mode. It was the year of this S*** Hits the Fan, when it seemed like everything that could go wrong did. And now… now they’re just fine with it? They’re just moving on? Uchiha Sasuke screwed them all over, but he’s back now so obviously that’s supposed to be fine. Jurou’s still in prison, thank everything, and that shark dude’s in the wind and hasn’t been heard from for months. And this guy… this man standing right in front of him messed up Katsuki’s head so bad, his mom sent him to  _therapy_. An actual shrink. Post-traumatic stress or whatever. He still has nightmares about fingers tearing his ribs from his body one by one.

It’s hard not to flinch now whenever Izanami—no… whenever  _Uchiha Itachi’s_ hands come too close. Even if on a conscious level, Katsuki understands this is just a lesson.

He’s starting to get comfortable in the Uchihas’ backyard, though. Slowly. It’s fenced in, private, decently green, is great for hosting BBQ picnics in the summer… everything you’d expect from a quaint suburban home. It’s become a regular hangout at this point, every Thursday evening. It just so happens to be housing an ex-murderer though. That’s all.

An ex-murderer who’s committed to teaching a handful of high school kids how he became one of the most feared assassins in the country.

Katsuki swears, if anybody reports this and they all get pounded, he’s going to enact double the pain on whoever blabbed, because he wants to milk this opportunity for everything it’s worth, no matter his mental problems. Once he’s done here, he’ll be f***ing  _unstoppable_. It’s exactly what he needs. If he can combine sick skills like Izanami’s—urgh, like  _Itachi’s_ —with his already-exceptional battle prowess… h***, he’ll be the greatest beast to ever graduate from their school.

He could take on the world and nothing could stop him.

His right arm twists forward, a foot sweeps behind his ankle, and quite suddenly, he’s sprawled on his back in the grass, bones aching from the impact.

_Merciless b*****d._

Said b*****d is now poised over him, a knee on his diaphragm and hand over his jugular, pinning him with a weight no one would expect from the man’s stature. The guy’s a twig—doesn’t help he was apparently sick for years and then comatose for like, two weeks at some point—but Katsuki knows if he tries to move, that lithe frame will coil around him like a boa and either lock a limb, threatening to break it, or suffocate him. Neither is an appealing option.

So with a curse muttered through clenched teeth, Katsuki taps out. Regrettably. For the seventh time.

Itachi—ugh, it’s weird to think of using the guy’s first name, but it becomes a bit difficult when there are two Uchihas around to keep track of—doesn’t linger longer than he has to. With an air of professional grace, he removes himself from Katsuki’s person and takes three steps back, giving him more than plenty of breathing room to recover himself. Katsuki slowly sits up with a groan, rolling his shoulders, which are sore from all the times they’ve been slammed into the unforgiving ground.

At least he hasn’t left a crater like Kirishima.

The others all gave up after three or four attempts. Apparently they’d had enough for today. Humiliation is a part of this training though, of course, so giving up now just means more of it next week. Katsuki would prefer to get it all over with as soon as possible. The more he suffers now, the faster he’ll improve.

Still. There’s an atmosphere of quiet excitement radiating from where the rest his peers are gathered, just across the lawn. His gaze sweeps past the well-tended flower beds and minimalistic black railing, and to his embarrassment, they zero in on Uraraka first. She, Iida, and Deku have taken up various displays of Lazy over on the porch, where some outdoor furniture and extra lawn chairs are set up around a short table. She’s claimed the sofa for herself, sprawled out like a slob. A few feet away, Kaminari and Sero are ogling the grill over Ms. Uchiha’s shoulders while Sasuke tries to bully them away. Kirishima, Ashido, Big Lips, and Kangaroo seem to be helping Beauty Mark (he thought he heard something about her being an old Uchiha family friend?) hand out lemonade.

So domestic. It almost makes him wanna gag. But his gaze catches once more on that nut-brown bob and lingers a bit longer than it should, and despite still looking a bit flushed from the exercise, she’s practically f***ing glowing. She laughs at something somebody says, something he’s not paying attention to. The stab of jealousy is murdered by her grin before it can even take root, and before he knows it, he’s smiling a little.

Okay. So he may or may not have a different reason altogether for sticking to these humiliating lessons.

He can’t pinpoint when it started. Maybe it was the beginning of third year? No, maybe last year, when everything was going down and Deku was losing his s*** and  _she_  was the only person aside from Kirishima to ask what was wrong when seeing Jurou’s stupid mugshot on TV had made him uncharacteristically silent. She’s now among the three who know why he knows the real name of the Villain known to everyone else as Muscular. So yeah, maybe that’s it…

No… no, it was before that. If he’s honest, he can probably trace the beginnings of his respect and admiration for her all the way back to their first sports festival. When the fire in her eyes had harmonized with his, and she’d almost turned him into Swiss cheese with a hair-raising, mind-f***ing  _meteor shower_  of her own making. When she’d pushed herself to her limits, just to nearly push him to his in return. Just remembering it makes the back of his neck feel hot, the hair raise on his forearms.

G**, he’s such a sap. He needs to get a grip.

She made it abundantly clear last year that his little crush is not mutual. Just before she started dating that d*** nerd…

_“You wanna know why, Bakugou? Because you think you deserve to get whatever you want. Including me. And I’m telling you no.”_

Suddenly, somebody’s sitting beside him in the shade. He almost jumps, especially as he glimpses the face framed between long raven hair.

Iza— no, Itachi.

Swallowing the instinctive fear, Katsuki forces himself to look the man square in the face. After all, he’d just helped himself to Katsuki’s company. And Katsuki’s not about to give in to the wariness that shivers its way up his spin, just having the infamous ex-Villain so close. For a split second, he swears the man’s eyes are glowing, red as blood, but then he blinks and its gone. Katsuki darts his gaze over the small brace on Itachi’s ankle—the government-issued Quirk inhibitor—and makes his relief as subtle as possible. He keeps forgetting that thing’s there, specifically to make sure this powerful criminal doesn’t have an off day and decide to revert back to full-blow Psychopath.

Then Katsuki realizes he’s been looking long enough for it to classify as staring, and he tears his eyes away. Back to the crowd of classmates on the porch. Kirishima’s hoisted Kaminari over his shoulder and started parading him away from the grill, much to the blond’s discomfort, Sero’s amusement, and Sasuke’s relief. Ms. Uchiha just smiles, an understated and gentle expression—she looks startlingly like her eldest that way.

Her eldest, who still hasn’t said a word since he took a seat beside Katsuki. Katsuki glances at him, sidelong this time so as not to be obvious.

Despite his subtlety, Itachi turns without hesitation to meet his gaze and something in Katsuki’s chest hiccups, his brain fully prepared for those coal-colored eyes to light up at any moment. Adrenaline makes his palms heat. And yet, Itachi does nothing. Just looks. And smiles a little, like his mother.

Holy s***, he really, really looks like his mother. It’s the weirdest thing and Katsuki really has no idea what to do with this comparison. It freaks him out.

“You’re doing well,” Itachi says and this time, Katsuki really does jump. He wasn’t expecting the guy to actually speak. “You have keen instincts. Keep working on refining your execution, and your overall performance will increase exponentially.”

Katsuki scoffs. “If I was really ‘doing well,’ I wouldn’t be ending up on the ground all the time, now would I?”

No, his continuous string of defeats is just a testament to his weakness. He finds himself eyeing Uraraka once more, the way she beams at that f***ing nerd, and he has to look away again. She just reminds him of his greatest defeat…

“How you get somewhere is just as important as the destination itself,” Itachi recites. “Time passes faster than we’d like, and if we fixate on the distant Yet-To-Come, we find ourselves deprived of the Now.”

D*** if he doesn’t sound like a fortune cookie or something.

Katsuki sneers to himself. “The Now sucks. You got a point, Gandhi?”

He can feel Itachi’s eyes on him again. “It’s all right if you’re not where you want to be right now. You’re young. Set your own pace. Relish the journey as much as you do the reward.”

“Hah?” Katsuki drawls, turning a narrow-eyed glare in this wanna-be philosopher’s direction. Itachi’s ready to meet his gaze with a calm, steady one of his own and it’s almost enough to make Katsuki retreat, but he has something to say and he’s gonna say it! “You just said time passes fast! You’re contradicting yourself, a**hat!”

For a beat of silence, Itachi’s only response is a slow blink. His small smile returns, that small, almost secretive sort of amusement. Like the f***ing Mona Lisa or something. “I didn’t mean it quite that way, but. Life is a contradiction.”

“Bulls***!” Katsuki hunches, averting his gaze back to his classmates—to Uraraka. She looks so… happy. “Life is simple. You wake up every day, you fight like H*** to make something of yourself before the sun goes down and if you fail, you’re just trash. You shoot for the stars, otherwise what the f*** are we here for? And at the end of the day, if you haven’t reached your goals by your own strength, then you didn’t deserve them. You’re either a winner or a loser. End of story.”

S***, she’s moving over to Deku now. Sitting on his lap, curling up with her head on his shoulder…

“…what does that mean for you, Bakugou?” Itachi’s voice is calm. Soothing.

What kind of a question is that?

He opens his mouth to answer, to say that it means just what he said, only to find that once he stops to think, he has no words. It’s… actually a good question. By his own standards… Is he the winner? Or loser?

Two years ago, he would’ve insisted to the point of violence that he was, in fact, a winner. Only winners became Heroes. Only winners were the best. And if he couldn’t be the best when dozens of people said he was, then why was he even breathing? So he’d developed his fantasy, the idea that he was untouchable. Unbeatable.

He’s failed too many times now for that to be true. And he lost  _her_  to that speckle-faced suck-up, so… if Deku’s a lame-a** loser, what does that make Katsuki?

So what now? Does his definition of ‘winner’ just… change? Or is he nothing more than a B-list loser now?

He scowls at his own train of thought.  _F***ing traitor._

Stupid philosophy. He doesn’t want to think about this stuff.

Itachi seems to be awaiting an answer though. Katsuki has to think of something to say.

Watching Deku steal a kiss from Uraraka while they think nobody’s watching is rather distracting, though. Katsuki swallows the envious monster that’s trying to lodge in his throat.

“Can I ask something of you…?” Beside him, Itachi’s voice is lower now. Hesitant for the first time.

Katsuki glances over, if only to free himself of the haunting reality before him. “What now?” he grumbles.

“What’s your reason?” Itachi plucks a few finger-fulls of grass between his feet, absently.

He waits three seconds for clarification and, when it doesn’t come, he frowns. “My reason for what? Be more specific, Uchiha.”

“…for living, I suppose.” The reply is distant. Muted.

It ticks Katsuki off. So he snarls, “Because I was born, idiot.”

That actually makes the guy chuckle. It’s the oddest thing, because it’s a ridiculously boyish sound, despite the depth of Itachi’s voice. “Touché… Do you ever wonder, though, if it’s worth it all in the end?”

For a second, Katsuki can’t help but give Itachi a bemused sidelong look, because what the heck is he doing asking that kind of question to a  _high schooler_? It’s not like Katsuki’s had the time or experience to figure out the meaning of life or any of that s***. Heck, he’s just trying to figure out if he’ll ever be able to have both his dream career and his dream girl.

Itachi hums. “Hm, I suppose that’s not quite what I mean…”

_The f***, man, just say what you mean then!!_

“You say that if you can’t reach your goals, it demerits you in some way. And what I mean to say is… whatever you’re sacrificing for the goals you envision… I guess only you can decide if it’s worth it when all is said and done.”

Sacrificing, huh?

B****, he’ll sacrifice everything if it means becoming the best of the best, proving to the world that Bakugou Katsuki will not be just another nobody. He refuses to fall into obscurity, refuses to leave behind nothing… and he tries not to look Uraraka’s way when he answers. “You don’t know anything about me, so don’t pretend to.”

Uchiha’s eyebrows twitch and yet even that gives nothing away about what’s actually going through his head. He just stares, like he can see straight through Katsuki’s eye sockets and into his soul. Feeling like somebody’s rifling through his brain just by looking at him makes Katsuki’s hackles raise, his body tense, and he glares a warning.

_Stop it. This ain’t no peep show…_

For a long time, Itachi says nothing. There’s a spell of blessed silence. Almost enough for Katsuki to let out a breath of relief.

Almost.

Then his companion finally speaks up again. “I don’t know you, no. But I like to think I know humanity… and you’re more human than you seem to think.”

F*** it.

What the h*** does this guy think he is, his shrink? He needs to shut up. He better, because Katsuki’s losing patience. He didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed or whatever the heck this creep’s trying to do, he came here to fight. He came here to win. He came to get stronger because he’s stumbled so many times over the last three years that at this point, he may as well be miles behind his classmates and it makes him f***ing  _sick_!

Worst of all, while he trails at the back, Deku leads the pack and everybody follows him, praises him,  _loves_  him. And none more than the one person, aside from All Might, whose words and opinion of himself Katsuki had actually put stock in. He’d unwittingly given her the perfect ammunition to pronounce judgment on his soul. She judged him Unworthy, less than trash, set him back for months and now he’s f***ing  _pathetic_  because  _he can’t stop thinking about her_. Because she was right, he’d screwed everything up, and he lost any chance he might’ve had because of it.  _Again!_

A growl, feral and muffled behind clenched jaws, escapes his throat and then he blurts out despite himself, “I do my best, all right!? I work hard and keep my grades up, stay healthy, all that necessary s*** so I can do more than waste oxygen. What more is there, huh? What more am I supposed to do?” He rakes his fingers into his hair, grips it tightly in his fists and seethes, “I can’t do s*** I don’t f***ing know, so if I blow it all to H***, what can I do about it? It’s already done, so the end game’s all I have, and I’m gonna reach it if it’s the last thing I do because in the end, that’s all there is!”

A tense beat passes between them, in which Katsuki realizes that Itachi is listening intently. Calmly. And there’s finally something written across his stony face, an emotion Katsuki can actually read. At first, he thinks it’s pity and his rage flares in his chest, but no, that’s not it…

Understanding. That’s what it is.

Itachi is also remaining quiet, allowing him to continue if he has more to say. He really doesn’t, but… Katsuki lets out a slow breath.

“You gotta make life worth living yourself. I can’t just… sit back, relax and enjoy the ride or I’ll lose my f***ing mind. I’ve already lost enough time as it is. So… I need that… that goal.” He ends with a graceful cough, trying to end on a more casual note. Which just ends up sounding like a lame-a** bail.

D*** this. He needs to stop talking to this guy… it makes him say things he only ever says in his head.

Slowly, Itachi nods. More understanding. It comes off him in waves. “I know you do… But, if I may… I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life. Time when I thought I was doing what I had to. But I missed so much because of it… I don’t want to waste this second chance I have now. A chance to actually live… and to love. I would hate to see anyone make the same mistakes I did, so… I suppose my point is… in your rush for the end game, what are you missing out on in the process?”

Those black eyes are deep. Open. Raw. Katsuki looks away from that surprisingly earnest gaze. His eyes find Uraraka right away, where she dozes on her boyfriend’s chest, and something in him hardens despite Itachi’s gentle words.

What is he missing?

“A whole lotta heartache.”


End file.
